Doug Huntman nestled his box turtle back into her giant plastic tote after a trip to get her nails and beak trimmed. He grinned down at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cPokey, all nice and fresh!\u201d he said, chuckling.<\/p>\n
Huntman jokes about everything, but especially Pokey, the pet he’s had for 43 years. Like her time at the vet’s office, where she spent her afternoon \u2014 it’s the “turtle spa.” She had to stay for a little longer than expected to deal with an overgrown beak. That left Huntman home without her for most of the afternoon. It felt strange not to have her around, Huntman said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Matt Faubion<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
Alaska Public Media<\/p>\n
Doug Huntman brings Pokey in for a nail and beak trim once every couple years. \u201cShe\u2019s low-impact\u201d he says about taking care of her for 43 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got the turtle when I was 12, and obviously I have a lot of gray hair on my face now,\u201d he said. \u201cI’m 55, so that is a long time to have a pet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pokey mostly spends her days dozing under her lamp, wandering around the house and crawling into cozy dark corners. She’s always been around \u2014 through puberty and summer jobs, marriage and multiple cross-country moves, career changes and kids. She’s the one constant in Huntman’s life. Forty-three years of very mild-mannered companionship.<\/p>\n
Huntman expects her to keep on trucking too \u2014 Pokey’s in good health, he said, and box turtles can live anywhere from 20 to 100 years. If need be, his sons will carry on the legacy.<\/p>\n
When he bought her all those years ago in Normal, Illinois, he had no idea Pokey could live that long. He decided to get a turtle on a whim. He had $7 in credit at a pet store, and there were two turtles for sale.<\/p>\n
\u201cA turtle could be fun,\u201d he thought. But he didn\u2019t know which one to choose.<\/p>\n
\u201cI set them both on the ground, and I raced them to see which one was the fastest,\u201d he said. \u201cPokey was the fastest, so I ended up with Pokey the turtle.\u201d<\/p>\n
He slowly figured out how to take care of her. He built her caves out of Legos. He discovered she could climb after she escaped a makeshift enclosure. It took hours of searching before he finally found her under the neighbor\u2019s wood pile.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Matt Faubion<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
Alaska Public Media<\/p>\n
Pokey wears her made-to-measure tank costume. Huntman says he puts it on at Halloween, but doesn\u2019t take her trick-or-treating.<\/p>\n
He still goofs around with her sometimes. Recently, he bought her a couple of hand-crocheted costumes off the internet \u2014 a camo tank and a stegosaurus. And he loves to let her explore the yard on sunny days. That involves a helium balloon tied to a big rubber band stretched around her middle so she doesn’t get lost.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as you put her in the yard with that balloon, she’s running away from you,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s not like, \u2018Hey, let’s play, let’s have a good time!\u2019 \u2013 Nope!\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the thing, he said. She’s kind of one-note. Every morning he\u2019ll go say hello, ask her how she\u2019s doing. But every morning, it\u2019s the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, you would think a turtle, after 40 years, we would have some rapport, but there’s really none,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019ll look at him blankly. Any sudden movement or a loud sound, and she sucks back into her shell.<\/p>\n
“I can tell what she’s thinking. It’s like, ‘Today is the day he’s finally going to eat me,'” he said, laughing. “So I don’t know \u2014 there’s not a lot of recognition there with the turtle.”<\/p>\n
He loves Pokey. But he\u2019s not sure whether she loves him back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know what turtles think,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t think there’s a lot of that love or empathy. If I’m in a burning building, I don’t think Pokey is going to come in and try and rescue me, or anything like that. If Timmy falls down a well, don’t send a turtle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turtles aren\u2019t like dogs, he said. They don’t really miss you when you’re not around. It\u2019s a different kind of bond. It\u2019s the fact that Pokey\u2019s always there. Huntman said that constant feels good, especially as he gets older.<\/p>\n
Still, when family or friends ask how Pokey\u2019s doing, there\u2019s not a lot to say. Usually, not much has changed.<\/p>\n
But, today \u2013 today was a big day, he said. She got her nails done, her beak trimmed, and she\u2019s starring in a news story?!<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are core memories for that turtle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Next time Huntman talks to his mom and dad, he\u2019ll have a lot to share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Doug Huntman nestled his box turtle back into her giant plastic tote after a trip to get her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-104416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}